Michael Reckord, Contributor
SMILE WIDE, voice hearty, his accent suggesting New York City, the man asks, "So what's the total bill, my man?"
He is addressing a serious-faced young clerk in a Santa Claus outfit behind the checkout desk at the Beachside Hotel. Aptly, if not imaginatively named, the hotel is on a beach, just outside of Montego Bay, and the waves washing on to it at that moment are sparkling in late afternoon sunlight.
The clerk taps on his keyboard and watches the computer monitor light up with information on the guest. He is A.D. Buttan, and he and his companion, Jennifer, a pretty, plump Jamaican in her mid-20s, have spent four nights at the hotel.
Numerous phone calls have been made from their room, as well as extensive use of the hotel's facilities jacuzzi, massage parlour, beauty salon and gym. The two have also engaged in several of the activities offered to guests, for a fee tours to places of historical and cultural interest, water skiing, catamaran sailing, and horseback riding. Additionally, they have eaten and drunk an extraordinary amount.
DRIVER'S LICENCE
"Five thousand, seven hundred and twenty dollars, sir," the clerk announces. "That's American, of course. Do you want it in Jamaican dollars, or will you be paying by credit card?"
"Credit card, of course," says Mr. Buttan. From his pocket he takes a cellphone and a wallet. As he opens the latter, a credit card and a lotto ticket fall on to the desk. The clerk glimpses a driver's licence in the wallet.
Those three items are in his hand as, 10 minutes later, he stands before the hotel manager in his office. The manager and his bespectacled, grey-haired secretary, Ms. Williams, watch the clerk shifting uncomfortably from leg to leg in his incongruously trim red and white suit.
"The credit card not registering anything, sar," says the clerk. "It might be because of the cellphone. You know them can
corrupt credit cards?"
The manager nods. "Yes, but can't he make a phone call and have money wired to us
immediately?"
"Not immediately, he says,
sar. The money couldn't come till tomorrow."
TRUSTWORTHY
"Well, let him pay tomorrow, then."
"He say he have to get back to New York tonight, on important business."
The manager shakes his head. "That's not good. You know we don't like guests to leave the hotel owing us money. Nine times out of ten, we never see them again, or get paid. Does Mr. Buttan strike you as trustworthy?"
"Not really, sar, something funny bout him."
"You sensed something funny and didn't alert me?"
Under the manager's stern gaze, the clerk's eyes shift to Miss Williams' thick glasses, then back again. He coughs. "Sorry, sir, it was just a feeling. But this is him driver's licence. There's an address on it."
He hands the licence to the manager who scrutinises it and frowns. "Fake," he pronounces and hands it back to the clerk. "Now we know we can't trust him."
"He says he not asking us to trust him, sar."
The manager's eyebrows shoot up. "What!"
"No, sar. He have a proposition for us."
"Which is?"
"He say this is the winning lotto ticket for tonight's draw. The first prize is $40 million. He's willing to swap the ticket for his bill."
The manager and his secretary look at each other in astonishment, then the manager asks, "How does he know that's the winning lotto ticket?"
"He dream it, sar."
The manager rises to his feet. "He dreamt it?"
"Yes, sar. He seh dat him have a special gift. Whatever him dream always come true."
Suddenly strangely agitated, the manager says, "Let me see that driver's licence again."
The clerk hands it over.
The manager stares at the photograph on it for a long time. "Is this Mr. Buttan?"
The clerk nods. "Yes, sar."
"Well I'll be damned!" exclaims the manager. "Give me the lotto ticket."
This the manager scrutinises as closely as he had the licence. "This is genuine, at any rate," he says, then laughs. "Tell Mr Buttan we'll accept the ticket in lieu of payment, but he must leave the hotel tonight and never return."
"You will, sar?" the clerk asks, amazed.
The manager, now unaccountably merry, nods. "After all, it's Christmas."
In their room, Mr. Buttan and Jennifer are packing.
"You think the manager going fall for you offer, Butty?" Jennifer asks.
"Yeah, man," Mr. Buttan replies. His American accent has vanished.
"Is one hell of a gamble him taking, dough."
LOTTERY TICKET
Mr. Buttan shrugs. "Sure, but he could win $40 million."
"He mighta bought a ticket himself. His ticket could win, instead of yours."
Mr. Buttan grins. "Yes, but he probably didn't dream that his ticket would win."
"You neither."
"He don't know that, Jenny. I been working this scam almost 10 years, and it don't fail me yet not with hotel managers, not with car dealers, not with furniture store owners, not with supermarket operators. Tell the average Jamaican you dream something, and he take it as a infallible sign. We too superstitious."
"I believe in signs," Jennifer says. "Mos' people believe in signs."
About to pack the room radio in with his shirts, Mr Buttan pauses to consider this. "Hmm, I guess you're right. That mean I could run this racket abroad and really live large."
"I could come wid you, Butty?" Jennifer asks anxiously.
Mr. Buttan frowns at her. "Doan chat foolishness. Jus' hurry and pack, we don't want seven o'clock to catch us here. The manager will be watching the draw on TV and he'll be very unhappy if my ticket doan win."
Jennifer throws two of the hotel's bath towels into her suitcase and closes the lid. "I'm ready. But, Butty, you ticket might win."
Mr. Buttan's face clouds for a moment, then brightens again. "Cho, it's a million to one chance."
In the manager's office, the manager explains his decision to his mystified secretary. "I've been waiting for Mr Buttan to return for the past eight years."
"You met him before?"
"He had another name then, Smith, Brown, Jones I forget. But I remember his face from his driver's licence."
"What happened?"
AMERICAN TOURIST
"I owned a small guest house then and this American tourist or so I thought and his young lady stayed there for a week and ran up a huge bill. When they were leaving, the man offered me a lotto ticket in lieu of the money he owed.
"He said he'd been born with a special talent for dreaming things before they happen clairvoyance, I think it's called and he had dreamt that the ticket would win. It's the same scam he's working here."
"You accepted?"
"I accepted, and guess what?"
"What?"
"I won the lottery, $40 million. I sold the guest house and bought this hotel."
"Lucky you!" exclaims Ms. Williams.
The manager smiles. "Indeed. For years I've been waiting for Mr. Buttan to come back so I could thank him, but over the period other hotel managers have told me of this scam artist who has been offering them a lotto ticket in payment for his hotel charges. It was then I realised that my Mr. Jones, or Smith or whatever was a samfie man."
"Have any of the other hoteliers won the lotto?"
"Nothing substantial, as far as I know."
"But you might be lucky again, sir?" the secretary asks.
"Yes, the signs are there: Buttan and his girlfriend at the time came to my guest house during the Christmas season and the jackpot was $40 million then, too."
The manager, who has been holding the pink and white lotto ticket in his hand all this while, now places it face down on his desk. He takes a gold pen from a lignum vitae holder on his polished mahogany desk. "But that's not the reason I'm accepting his offer again."
"It's not, sir?"
"No."
The manager writes, then signs his name in the spaces provided on the back of the lotto ticket. He tucks the ticket into an inner jacket pocket. A half-smile on his face, he turns to Ms. Williams.
"It wasn't intentional," he says, "but Buttan gave me a gift of millions of dollars and this is an appropriate time to thank him with four nights' complimentary stay at my hotel. After all, it's Christmas."
